A British banker who pressed claims tying U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead by hanging outside Bangkok, leaving his family grieving and regulators under fresh fire.
Simon Andriesz, 57, was discovered on the morning of September 23 in a town just outside Bangkok, Thailand. Khlong Luang Town’s municipality office recorded the death and listed the cause as asphyxiation from hanging.
The former Wall Street managing director had spent years arguing that his old boss, now President Donald Trump’s Commerce secretary, failed to come clean about business ties to the convicted sex offender. Firms and officials disputed those claims. Andriesz still kept talking, until he was gone.
The Daily Mail reported the death after confirming the municipal record and gathering statements from Andriesz’s family, his former employer, Britain’s financial watchdog, and campaigners who had worked with him.
Andriesz had recently been living in Cornwall after a long career in the securities industry. Friends and relatives described a man who would not drop what he saw as unfinished business.
In a statement issued to the Daily Mail, his family did not speculate about the hanging. They asked for privacy for his son and closest circle, and they framed his public fights as a matter of conscience.
"Simon was a much-loved husband, father, brother, son and friend, and his loss has left an enormous hole in the lives of those who knew and loved him."
They added that he held a hard line on right and wrong.
"He was also a man with a very strong sense of right and wrong. When Simon believed something was wrong, he found it extraordinarily difficult simply to look the other way. That determination came at a considerable personal cost, but he continued to speak out because he genuinely believed that doing so mattered."
The family said they hoped he would be remembered for his life and courage, not only for how he died, and that better treatment of whistleblowers and vulnerable people could form part of his legacy.
Friend John Robertson set up a GoFundMe page aimed at supporting Andriesz’s son’s education, welfare, and future opportunities, with a target of £35,000.
Andriesz was a former managing director at BGC Group, known as BGC Partners until 2023. Howard Lutnick previously served as the firm’s chief executive before becoming U.S. Commerce secretary and a key aide to Trump.
Andriesz claimed Lutnick failed to disclose a business relationship with Epstein. He said he uncovered 2018 emails that, in his account, showed Lutnick and Epstein discussing a start-up. Epstein, convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a child, died in prison a year after those messages.
Epstein files later yielded a 2012 photograph of Epstein and Lutnick on Little St James, the private island tied to Epstein’s network. Lutnick has said he met Epstein three times and insisted he only learned this year that Epstein had been an investor in the firm.
Lutnick has condemned Epstein’s crimes in plain terms.
"I unequivocally condemn the conduct attributed to Jeffrey Epstein and everyone who participated in his illegal activities. The survivors of his crimes deserve our respect and support."
Andriesz also told the BBC that one of Lutnick’s firms planned in 2013 to go into business with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then a UK trade figure. Andriesz claimed the aim was to commercially exploit contacts through a £1 million loan to “basically buy a prince.” The deal never happened, the reporting states. Lutnick was friends with Sarah Ferguson and attended Princess Eugenie’s wedding in 2018.
Before Lutnick appeared in May before the U.S. House Oversight Committee, Andriesz said he had shared findings from the Epstein files with politicians on that panel. The U.S. Commerce Department said it found no evidence of wrongdoing. In July, the White House answered BBC coverage with a blunt defense of Lutnick’s record at Commerce, calling the network’s effort a “pathetic and desperate attempt to slander” him and arguing it would not change his standing as a consequential secretary.
Trump was photographed with Epstein several times in the 1990s and early 2000s and has always denied knowledge of Epstein’s sex offending. Nothing in the available record revises that denial.
Andriesz was sacked in 2017 after roughly 35 years in the securities business. BGC’s account is that he refused to follow medical advice or perform essential duties, rejected reasonable accommodation, and abandoned his role. Andriesz cast himself as a whistleblower punished for pressing uncomfortable questions.
A BGC spokesman, commenting after the death, kept both tracks in view, dispute and condolence.
"BGC has long disputed Mr Andriesz's allegations but does not intend to relitigate these matters at this sad time."
The firm also said it was sorry to hear the news and expressed condolences to the family. BGC has described the allegations as categorically false and unsubstantiated after investigations by authorities in several jurisdictions.
Andriesz raised concerns with the FBI while in dispute with BGC and later said he felt “thoroughly let down” by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, the watchdog he also pressed for action.
Members of Parliament have called for an investigation into the FCA’s treatment of whistleblowers. At the regulator’s annual public meeting, pressure landed on Chairman Ashley Alder.
Andy Agathangelou, founder of the Transparency Task Force, confirmed Andriesz’s death and called him a whistleblower who stood up for what was right and a valued member of that community. Agathangelou went further in a direct challenge to Alder.
"It is clear to me and many others that you are incapable of protecting the reputational integrity of the FCA. On that basis, I call for you to resign."
Labour MP John McDonnell’s statement, read at the meeting, labeled Andriesz’s death a “profound and preventable tragedy.” McDonnell accused the watchdog of trying to “mark their own homework,” called whistleblowers an essential part of the financial regulatory system, and warned of the damage if people stop believing they will be treated properly, protected, and heard.
The FCA offered condolences and announced a process move. A spokesman said that since expressing sorrow, the board had asked Lea Paterson, a newly arrived non-executive director, to review how the authority interacted with Andriesz and to learn any lessons for the future.
Paul Callin, a Transparency Task Force community member and financial services expert, said Andriesz had “bravely fought alone for several years doing what he believed was right in exposing evidence of wrongdoing,” and that “a lone and vulnerable voice was let down by some of those who he needed to trust and who were able to make a difference.” Callin called it a tragedy that Andriesz felt so abandoned and “saw no way out recently and was lost.”
Soon after his revelations drew public notice, Andriesz spoke at a Transparency Task Force event about the toll on his career, health, and family. That is the arc the record shows: claims filed with powerful institutions, pushback from his old firm, partial political attention in Washington, and a British regulator now reviewing its own conduct only after a body was found in Thailand.
Thai municipal papers list asphyxiation from hanging. They do not, in the reporting at hand, settle every question about manner, motive, or final state of mind. No official finding beyond that cause is spelled out here.
The full text of the 2018 emails Andriesz cited is not laid out beyond his characterizations. Outcomes of the multi-jurisdiction investigations BGC cited are not detailed. Exact packets delivered to the House Oversight Committee, the FCA, and the FBI remain outside the published account.
What is on the record is simpler and harder to shrug off. A longtime banker named names, waved Epstein-file material, hit a wall at his old firm and at the regulator he petitioned, and died alone far from home. His family wants privacy. Campaigners want resignations and real protection for people who speak up. BGC still rejects his core charges. Lutnick condemns Epstein and denies the wrongdoing Andriesz alleged. The Commerce Department says it saw no proof of misconduct.
Whistleblowers are not saints by default, and contested claims are not verdicts. But a financial system that preaches transparency cannot treat the people who risk their livelihoods as disposable nuisances and then act surprised when trust collapses. Institutions that slow-walk hard questions about Epstein’s old orbit invite the very suspicion they claim to hate. Andriesz is dead. The unfinished business he chased is not.
